This chapter features a broad spectrum of voices of the 1960s which all, if to varying degrees, used the normative framework of human rights in their growing criticisms of global inequalities: from pan-Africanists to the 1960s Popes to development economist Barbara Ward to other key figures in the UN community of ideas. Building upon new research on the global history of human rights, the chapter demonstrates that human rights were deployed to criticize global material inequality; that their protagonists were concerned with distributive justice; and that it was a long quest to defend economic and social human rights. Global inequalities, including those pertaining to racism and empire, were increasingly unjustifiable – to some extent in the very light of the growing legitimacy of human rights. It was a decade in which international economic and social human rights acquired a hitherto unparalleled legitimacy with the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The chapter sheds new light on figures such as Barbara Ward, the 1960s Popes, Ralph Bunche, and UNESCO official Malcolm Adiseshiah.

This chapter focuses on the history of human rights thinking mainly in the aftermath of the founding of the United Nations. It focuses primarily on international jurist Hersch Lauterpacht and secondarily on political scientist Arthur Holcombe. Whereas the 1948 UDHR has received much attention in human rights historiography, the chapter tells a story less told of how key intellectuals at the time grappled with international economic and social human rights. Little studied in the scholarly literature that have mainly focused on Lauterpacht’s legacy in inventing the legal concept of “crimes against humanity,” the chapter argues that his thinking on the international protection of human rights in 1950 was a nuanced, qualified, and careful, yet uncompromising defense of economic and social rights. Ultimately, while Lauterpacht’s defense of human rights mainly relied on the all-important negative principle of safeguarding individuals against the state – a protection from evil and harm that the contemporary order had blatantly failed to secure in the case of the Holocaust – it also entailed a more positive principle of facilitating human flourishing.

Whereas political and intellectual debates about the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights have received considerable scholarly attention, the intellectual history of international economic and social human rights in the 1950s remains an understudied topic. This chapter investigates this history, zooming in upon Ralph Bunche, Gunnar Myrdal, and Moses Moskowitz, and mapping their main arguments in favor of economic and social human rights. Within the domineering horizon of the global Cold War, they argued in favor of internationalizing economic and social human rights, even if their chances of success, admittedly, looked very slim. It was a human rights advocacy that included a criticism of material inequality. This advocacy flowed from several actors in various parts of the UN – from Bunche’s and Myrdal’s UN leadership positions preoccupied, respectively, with political conflicts and decolonization and economic development, to Moskowitz representing the Jewish minority at the UN and dedicated solely to human rights advocacy. Little noted in the scholarly literature, economic, and social human rights had some degree of salience within the burgeoning discourses on development too.

Beginning with a discussion of the right to strike in international law, the chapter explains how most industrial action was regarded as a tortious wrong. Statute provides a limited immunity for trade unions and their officials for industrial action that is part of a trade dispute. In order to obtain that immunity in tort, trade unions must carry out a secret ballot of the members to demonstrate that there is majority support for a strike. Apart from the foregoing, this chapter also examines legal restrictions on secondary action and picketing, and concludes with a discussion of the limited impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on the scope of the right to strike in British law.

This chapter nuances the widespread view that human rights became the world’s global morality in the post–Cold War era. Investigating examples from international human rights law and intellectual history, it demonstrates that economic and social human rights did not come to enjoy the same status as civil and political rights. The mid-1970s to the 1980s was a period of frustration for economic and social human rights. Within a few years, hopes for a more egalitarian international world order with international obligations to promote economic and social human rights were shattered. Major factors were the dynamics of postcolonialism, the global Cold War and state power logics, and neoliberalism. Partly as a testimony to this, intellectuals such as Amartya Sen were concerned with basic rights. The post–Global Cold War period was marked by a premature sentiment of human rights triumphalism, though there were important efforts to strengthen economic and social human rights. As witnessed from the backlashes against these rights in the twenty-first century, their wider legitimacy and influence has remained much weaker than their advocates have hoped for.

This introduction presents the main arguments of the book, develops a novel terminological framework, and situates the book in current research. First, from the perspective of international economic and social human rights, this is not an age of human rights triumphalism. The main human rights advocates featured in this book were concerned with international justice and redistributive justice, and theirs was a long quest to lift international economic and social human rights onto a level-playing field through three phases: internationalizing rights, criticizing global inequalities through rights, and attempting to secure the legitimacy of these rights once and for all. Second, on a broader egalitarian plateau, human rights advocacy can be situated on a redistributionist terrain. Third, this book supplements institutional, organizational, diplomatic, political, and movement-centered research on international human rights. There is a gap in existing scholarship in understanding historical interrelations between human rights and inequalities, which is where this book intervenes, above all from an intellectual historical perspective.

This chapter analyzes the development of discourses on human rights and on inequality from 1962 until 1974 through the lens of Manouchehr Ganji, an Iranian human rights scholar and UN Special Rapporteur. Where other scholars have examined Ganji’s report The Widening Gap from 1973 with a key focus upon its impact within the UN, this chapter contextualizes the report in three novel ways, bringing in his 1962 doctoral dissertation not previously studied in the research literature; connecting it to how inequality became a major theme in the late 1960s and early 1970s broadly across development discourse, and to how human rights increasingly were deployed to denounce inequality; and, finally, by discussing these developments with regard to recent discussions of the historical relationships between human rights, inequality, and neoliberalism. Crucially, beyond the singularity of the one individual studied most in this chapter stands a much more general and pertinent point: The human rights project in 1973 was an ambitious anti-inequality project. It was a structural approach to human rights, aiming at undoing deeper within- and between-nation inequalities.

This chapter analyzes discourses on universal economic and social human rights and social democracy in connection with intellectuals discussing the American and British war aims of World War II. It was an age of major societal transformations: the socialization of work due to industrial capitalism; experiences of authoritarian ideologies emerging out of, inter alia, extreme inequality; and nascent uproars against racism and imperialism. Human rights were part of moral discourses on equality and social justice in the aftermath of the Great Depression and critiques of laissez-faire capitalism. The chapter details how Ralph Bunche and George Herbert Wells championed a vision of social democracy and human rights. Bunche and Wells intervened in wartime when many intellectuals across the political and religious spectrum would write of human rights. Key intellectual actors increasingly referred to a new political “space” of “the world,” and some were redefining “democracy” as a “world” and a “social” democracy. Revisiting their thinking allows for a more detailed reconstruction of their argumentation, including on how, specifically, they defended economic and social human rights.

During the era of détente, Soviet and US leaders pursued common interests in controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, limiting the cost of the arms race, and expanding trade. Summit meetings brought agreements on nuclear non-proliferation, arms limitation, and space exploration. Yet, after a high point of friendly negotiation in the early 1970s, friction and competition overshadowed cooperation. While the unraveling of détente has often been blamed on Soviet adventurism in the “Third World,” this chapter presents a more balanced explanation. It notes that the United States too intervened around the world, argues that geopolitical competition was not the sole cause of tension, and highlights how domestic political dynamics disrupted relations between the superpowers. After the divisive and destructive US war in Vietnam, many Americans yearned to recover faith in their moral superiority. Denunciations of Soviet human rights violations, including restrictions on Jewish emigration and repression of dissidents, contributed to a revival of confidence in American virtues while irritating Soviet leaders. Long before the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, acrimony eclipsed partnership.

Chapter 1 introduces the main issues raised in Labour Law and its social and economic significance in regulating workplace relations. The chapter introduces the principal sources of labour law in the UK, which include statutes, the common law and European law and the difficulties in securing compliance by employers with those laws. It describes the system of employment tribunals and ordinary courts where disputes are resolved. Finally the chapter introduces some contemporary themes concerning precarious work, work/life balance and human rights at work.

The rapid development of drone technologies and ever-increasing numbers of drone operations have introduced new challenges to privacy in the context of aerial surveillance. This chapter reveals the diverse ways in which the use of drone technology can interfere with the right to privacy and stresses how the advanced capabilities of modern drones contribute to the increased frequency and severity of privacy violations. The chapter also explores the broader implications of drone regulation on human rights, emphasising the tension between protecting privacy and ensuring other rights, such as freedom of expression and the right to property. It draws attention to the necessity for legislators to develop a comprehensive understanding of these threats to craft an effective legal framework. By critically examining existing drone legislation, particularly from a European perspective, the chapter highlights the main areas on which a legal response to the threats posed by the use of drones should concentrate. A proactive and holistic regulatory approach is proposed, balancing the competing interests of privacy protection, innovation, and other fundamental rights.

This chapter examines the phenomenon of disinformation in the digital era and its implications for freedom of expression. It explores how the rapid dissemination of false, manipulated, and misleading information – termed a ‘disinfodemic’ – poses threats to human rights, democracy, and public trust. The chapter outlines the historical roots of disinformation, the technological factors that enable it, and the responses by public and private actors to mitigate its harmful effects. The chapter differentiates between disinformation (intentional), misinformation (unintentional), and malinformation (genuine information used to harm), while highlighting their diverse forms, such as fake news, deepfakes, and conspiracy theories. Disinformation erodes public trust, affects electoral integrity, threatens public health, and harms individuals’ rights to information and privacy. The chapter emphasises the necessity of finding a balance between combating disinformation and preserving freedom of expression.

The chapter examines internet addiction as a threat to human rights. Medical research indicates that excessive internet use can lead to mental and physical health issues, behavioural risks, and impaired functioning. Specific features of the internet, such as ease of access and anonymity, may contribute to addiction. Although only a minority develop this addiction, vulnerable groups, especially children and those with pre-existing mental health conditions, are at higher risk. Law and policy responses include public health approaches, consumer protection, and initiatives to protect vulnerable groups. The right to disconnect is emerging as a potential solution, particularly in work contexts, but its effectiveness in addressing internet addiction is limited. International human rights law provides a framework for addressing internet addiction, but specific interpretations are still developing. Multidisciplinary approaches integrating mental health research with legal analysis are crucial for developing effective responses.

Scholars have sometimes treated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as beneficent stewards of the global good that act in opposition to the limited and selfish interests of nations. This chapter calls for approaches that treat these groups as organizations that often serve government interests; have bureaucratic structures and agendas that must be analyzed and understood; are buffeted by funding constraints that shape aspiration and action; and are driven in part by self-serving motives such as increasing their own prestige. The chapter offers practical tips for studying biographies of key figures, broader historical contexts, inter- and intraorganizational rivalries, and professionalization, among other matters.

This chapter explores the challenges of applying human rights frameworks to the digital realm through the lens of non-coherence theory. This theory posits that human rights in the digital domain differ fundamentally from their offline counterparts owing to shifts in meaning, scope, and application. The chapter critically examines the assumption that offline human rights norms can be seamlessly transposed into the digital environment, highlighting the distortions and variances that arise in this process. It also delves into epistemological and ontological concerns, such as the relativity of human rights in the digital space, and introduces new conceptual frameworks such as the equilibrium of relative rights thesis. The chapter highlights discrepancies in how rights, such as privacy and dignity, manifest online compared with offline, arguing that these differences necessitate a rethinking of legal frameworks. The chapter challenges the traditional notion of absolute human rights, arguing that digital environments introduce a relativity that shifts the balance between competing rights (e.g., privacy versus freedom of expression).

This chapter discusses possible interpretations for the failure of COVID-19 tracking apps during the pandemic in the Western world in the context of digitalisation. It revisits the impact of digitalisation in public law and examines specific norms governing the right to health. The chapter explores key barriers, including privacy concerns, technological limitations, and public distrust, that contributed to the inefficacy of these digital tools. By analysing these challenges, the study identifies lessons for future digital health policies, emphasising the need for transparent governance, legal safeguards, and public engagement. It argues that human rights law must evolve to better balance privacy with public health objectives, ensuring digital technologies enhance rather than undermine fundamental rights.

Starting from the evolution of the protection of human rights on the internet, the first part of this chapter analyses the proposals for new digital human rights and the methodology of their creation in different forums such as the Council of Europe and European Union as well as related processes in the United Nations Human Rights Council. The second part focuses on the challenges related to the rapid developments in artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, for the protection of human rights and regulatory efforts by the Council of Europe, in particular its Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law adopted in 2024 and the Artificial Intelligence Act of the European Union dating from the same year. Both instruments are analysed for their potential to protect human and fundamental rights in particular through new digital human rights. The contribution finds possible complementarity between the two regulatory approaches. Giving several examples, it concludes that there is an ongoing process of the concretisation of new digital human rights, which are mainly but not exclusively based on existing human rights.